Prostitute loved best friend despite helping dispose of body

A DRUG addicted prostitute, who was prone to seeing and hearing things, said she loved her murdered best friend despite having severely bashed her and helping dispose of her friend's body.

She even suggested to the man accused of murdering her "best friend" they not cut up her body because it would "make too much of a mess."

Christopher James Swan pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday to murdering Amanda Jane Quirk, 32, at Booval on April,1, 2010.

Her badly decomposed body was found a week later in bushland near Tenterfield in New South Wales.

First to give evidence at his trial was Michelle Anne Mondientz who was also charged in relation to Ms Quirk's murder.

She told the court she had received a significantly reduced sentence for her involvement in the murder if she agreed to give evidence at the trial.

Mondientz told the court about events on the night which eventually led to her so-called best friend being murdered.

She said the night Ms Quirk was murdered she along with Swan and two others piled in a car and headed to Brisbane to attend a party and obtain some speed.

Mondientz told the court she "became very violent" after injecting herself with speed a started accusing Amanda of "ordering a hit" on the three of them during the drive back to Ipswich.

"I got really violent and started abusing Amanda," she said.

"I was yelling at her and hitting her in the back of the car."

Mondientz told the court she was then dropped of near her home before receiving a call sometime later from Swan who told her Amanda was dead and he needed help with "getting rid of her body."

She said Swan picked her up and drove her back to Amanda's Dudleigh Street home.

"Amanda was lying dead on a mattress on the floor," she said.

"She was covered in bruises . . . it was horrific.

"I could tell she suffered badly."

Mondientz told the court she discussed with Swan about the best way to dispose of Ms Quirk's body.

"We discussed cutting her up, but I told him that would be too messy," she said.

"I ended up putting a blanket over her because I could not stand seeing her like that."

She went on to describe to the court how she, along with Swan and another person, carried Ms Quirk's body to and put it into the boor of a car before going back inside the house and helping clear up the scene.